Territorial and Non-territorial: The Mobile Borders of Migration Controls

Abstract

Migration is not only about people crossing or trying to cross territorial state borders. Migration is also about the immaterial, non-territorial borders embodied by the people that cross or try to cross territorial state borders. There would be no migration controls if there were no territorial borders to ‘protect’, but only non-territorial status borders make it possible to determine from whom territorial borders should be protected, and thus justify their very existence. The very concepts of international migration and migration controls are based on the existence of differences in the personal conditions and legal statuses of individuals on a global scale, determining who should be allowed or forced to cross territorial borders, and upon what conditions.